Cry for Kit

by Veronica Heley

  ‘So how do we get out?’ demanded Johnny.

  Our position, though uncomfortable, was not at that moment dangerous. The water continued to rise, and when Johnny dropped off the bunk, it washed around his thighs, but we could always retreat to the stairs, which were brick-built and rose in a steep flight to the door.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Edward, ‘This cellar lies half under the terrace and half under the sitting-room. The water level could rise to the ceiling in here, and still not flood through the larder and up into the house itself.’

  ‘We’ll be missed,’ said Johnny.

  ‘Amy has explanations ready for that contingency,’ said Edward. ‘In fact, if I were her, I wouldn’t bother to retrieve our bodies at all. I would lay my trails leading away from this house, put a padlock on that door up there, turn the water back into the sprinkler system when it begins to flood the larder, and wait. Let time do her work for her. If we drown, all well and good. If we haven’t drowned, we can be starved to death. No one will hear us down here. No one will search the house for us, because everyone will think we’ve gone. They may drag the lake for our bodies—they probably will; but there is an overflow beyond my property into the river, and they may think we’ve been swept along there. Either way, we’re not expected to be in the house. If I were Amy, I would even go away for a while...a couple of months, maybe? She could leave Lewis or her chauffeur here in charge. Then at some convenient moment the bodies in the cellar could be retrieved and buried in the wood.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll do that,’ I said, ‘because she needs to prove your death in order to inherit your money and shares in the Mills.’

  ‘She’s had that,’ said Edward, grimly smiling. ‘I altered my will this morning, leaving everything to you, or if you predecease him, to Johnny here.’

  ‘I don’t want it,’ said Johnny, horrified.

  ‘Edward will teach you how to handle money,’ I said. ‘When we get out of here he’s going to divorce Amy and make you legitimate, so you’d better start thinking of yourself as a moneyed man.’

  Our first problem was to stop the water from rising any further, and since we were unable to send the waters of the spring back uphill, it made sense that we found and cleared the obstruction in the pipe which should have led the waters safely away from under the house in a drain leading to the lake. If Amy had caused a blockage in the drain, Edward explained, it was likely that she had somehow or other filled it in at its most accessible point, which was through an inspection hole covered by a grating in the floor of the cellar. The difficulty lay in locating this grating now that the floor was under a metre of water. The men took planks and started to scrape along the floor with them. Edward found the grating, took a deep breath and went underwater to try to ease it off. He failed. Johnny tried, but the grating was jammed.

  We cast around for something to use as a lever, but there did not seem to be a scrap of metal in the cellar. Edward said there had once been an ancient tool-box among the rubbish, but he couldn’t remember what might be in it. The tool-box would be too heavy to float. Once again the men picked up their planks and probed the floor. Edward discovered the body of Crisp. That was a horrible moment. In silence he gathered up the body and carried it to the sideboard, which still stood in its original position. Everything else in the cellar, apart from the bunks, was moving by now.

  They failed to find the tool-box on the floor. At last Edward thought to look inside the sideboard, and found it there. He set it high up on the steps and we all crowded round to inspect it. No chisels, no hammers...only a motley collection of nails, tacks, screws and a few large bolts, two of which measured the length of my hand. Nothing which would help us.

  I sat on the top bunk, shivering, while the men wrenched at the grating with their bare hands. Finally they got it up. Johnny dived underneath to inspect the drain He came up with a double handful of tiny stones and mud.

  ‘Cement mixture,’ said Edward. ‘Not properly set. They must have done the job in a hurry this afternoon. We can ladle it out, perhaps. We’ll use the planks as scoops, contrive some boxes from other planks and ladle it into them, or else it will slide back as we clear the hole...’

  I said, ‘Edward, isn’t there some rope down here? I don’t like it when you disappear underwater. Suppose you don’t come up? You could easily knock yourself out underwater, and I couldn’t help.’

  As if to support my proposal, when Johnny came up again, he put his hand to his head and brought it away with blood on his fingers. Neither man took any notice of my suggestion. I don’t think they’d even heard me.

  ‘The cement’s inside a drum of some kind,’ said Johnny. ‘Metal. I can feel all round the rim. It’s circular, and almost completely blocking the drain. There’s not enough room for you to get your hands down between it and the sides of the manhole, but there’s enough room for the water to come up. Clever, really.’

  Edward went under to investigate, while Johnny wiped his forehead of blood, and panted. I took off my once-beautiful dress, laid it on the top bunk, and climbed down to search for some rope. The clinging dress would only hamper my movements and it would be no protection against the spars of wood and broken pieces of furniture which were bobbing around in the water.

  ‘Dustbin!’ gasped Edward, coming up for air. ‘Old metal dustbin, let down into the drain and filled with stones and ready-mix cement. Luckily for us they’ve got the proportions wrong and it hasn’t set yet.’

  The men started to scoop out stones and cement. The water was up to my breastbone and icy. I wondered how the men were being affected by the cold, for although both were strong and well-built, neither had been through an easy time that day, neither had eaten that evening, and both had been drugged. Edward was bearing up well; it looked as if he might beat the drug, but he was slow and heavy in his movements. Johnny was fresher, even though he had played tennis that afternoon.

  I couldn’t find any rope. I tried the sideboard first, and then waded round the cellar, picking up planks and chairs and trying to jam them into the bottom bunk so that they would not impede the men in their work. I was almost round when I tripped and fell into the water, going right under. More shocked than hurt, I spluttered to the surface. I had fallen over something soft. Dragging it to the sideboard, I found I had tripped over a bolster full of old clothes. Useful, if they hadn’t already been as saturated with water as the clothes we had on. Edward had discarded his jacket and was working in shirtsleeves; both men’s clothes were already torn and muddied.

  And still the waters rose.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Johnny, leaning on his plank. ‘The further down we go, the harder it is to clear. The water will soon be too deep for us to work down there. Isn’t there a pickaxe? Couldn’t we break into the drain farther along and let the water out that way?’

  ‘I can’t be sure of the exact run of the drain,’ said Edward, ‘and anyway, we’ve already searched for tools. There aren’t any. Let’s take a breather and think again.’

  As they waded to the bunks, I ducked under the water to inspect the manhole for myself. I’d always been a good swimmer, and it would be no hardship for me to stay underwater a while. In fact, it took only a moment to certify my guess.

  As I came up for air, ‘What are you doing, Kit?’ Edward was angry with me. ‘What a fright you gave me! I thought I told you to keep out of the way!’

  ‘Darling, if you go on like that, I’ll turn Women’s Lib! I’m just as brave as you are, and I’ve got far more brains. Whoever it was put that dustbin down there had to knock the handles off first, in order to get it to fit within the diameter of the manhole...right? So he left four holes, two on either side of the dustbin, about a handsbreadth down, where the handles had been joined on...right? So why can’t you thread something through the holes and lift the dustbin, complete with contents, clear of the drain?’

  The men looked at each other, struggling with their worser selves. They didn’t want to admit they’d ov
erlooked the obvious, but both saw I was right.

  ‘Leverage,’ said Johnny, squinting at the planks which floated around them. ‘I could rig up a sheerlegs...’

  ‘No rope,’ said Edward. ‘No chains. We’d be wasting our time. I think I ought to tackle the door. Maybe I can make some impression...’

  ‘You know perfectly well you can’t make an impression on an oak door with your bare hands,’ I said. ‘There are plenty of old clothes in that bolster. I’ll make you all the ropes you need, if you do the engineering.’

  For all my boasting, I was quite pleased to have the men take me by the arms and escort me to the steps. That water was getting too deep for me.

  ‘Promise me you’ll stay there?’ said Edward. ‘Be good, Kit, for my sake. I shan’t have a moment’s peace if I know you’re in danger.’

  ‘I’ll turn over a new leaf.’

  ‘Do we trust her?’ Johnny enquired of his father.

  ‘She means it when she looks you in the eye,’ Edward explained. ‘But watch out if she avoids looking at you.’

  Johnny’s laugh lightened the gloom, but the next half-hour was the stuff from which nightmares are born. I pierced holes in the seams of old clothes, using a file from the tool-box, rent the fabric into strips and plaited the strips into ropes. The men slipped and cursed and heaved wood around, with the water ever rising around them. They raised a tripod of timber over the manhole, and secured it with my makeshift ropes. By that time the debris I had piled into place on the lower bunk had floated free again, and the water was sucking at the corpse of Crisp on the sideboard.

  Johnny slipped and fell. He was a long time coming up, and Edward dropped the planks he was carrying to dive underwater for his son. That was the worst moment of my life; I sat there with my hands clenched, trying not to scream. I prayed. I vowed to sacrifice something which was of importance to me, if only the men were spared. I would give up drink, and become a teetotaller, I would...

  They surfaced. Johnny was half-conscious and waterlogged. Edward went into a life-saving act and deposited Johnny heavily on my lap before taking another supply of rope back to the tripod.

  Johnny coughed and spluttered back to life in my arms. It was the first time I’d touched him since he was a few weeks old, and he was now twice my weight. I unwound the bandages from his wrists and bound the cut on his forehead, which was still bleeding.

  ‘Better now!’ he gasped. He tried to sit up. I pressed him back. ‘My father!’ he cried.

  Edward was nowhere to be seen. For a moment we both feared he had drowned. Then Edward surfaced, whipped back his hair, and went under again.

  ‘He’s trying to wedge bolts from the tool-box across the holes left by the dustbin handles,’ said Johnny. ‘Then we can tie rope round the chisels, hoist it over the sheerlegs and pull the dustbin up out of the hole.’ He made as if to jump back in, but I held him back, and he was so shaken that he didn’t hold me off. Edward got one bolt fixed at the third try. The second took much longer, a further five nerve-racking minutes. The water was around his chest now, and it was easier to swim than wade.

  ‘He’s strong for his age,’ commented Johnny.

  ‘He’s only forty-two, and you won’t live as long as that if you don’t take better care of yourself. I insist that you two rope yourselves together from now on.’

  ‘You sound just like Mum; “Have you got your handkerchief? Don’t forget your overcoat!”’ He flicked my cheek. ‘You’re all right,’ he said. He tied one end of a rope round his waist, coiled the rest round his shoulders, gave me an elaborate salute and plunged back into the water.

  The next ten minutes were spent in hectic and fruitless efforts to raise the dustbin. I moved the tool-box and the remaining heap of cast-off clothes to the top step while the men struggled and spoke of counterpoises and weights. They lashed some planks together and fitted them over the tripod. One end of this makeshift crane now depended over the manhole, and Edward dived again and again to attach a rope from this to the bolts lodged in the dustbin’s sides. Then the two men gathered all the driftwood they could find and lashed it to the free end of the balancing plank. It didn’t shift the dustbin, although the ropes strained taut.

  ‘I’ll climb on it,’ panted Johnny. ‘We haven’t anything else heavy enough to raise it. We couldn’t shift the sideboard, and haven’t enough ropes to spare to reach...’

  ‘Will the ropes stand the strain?’

  ‘Must do. We’ve only got to get it moving a few inches, put in a wedge, the force of the water will help us once we’ve made some headway...how deep does it usually run in the drain?’

  ‘Before I diverted it? Knee-deep, I’d say.’

  Johnny mounted on Edward’s shoulders and climbed on the balancing plank. My ropes strained and stretched. Edward leaped at the plank and hung on to it, adding his weight to Johnny’s. Was it my imagination, or were their bodies sinking towards the water?

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘It’s going down!’ I shrieked. I stood up and yelled and waved my arms around, for the level of the water was now stationary, and now, very slowly, dropping. It crept down the brick wall beside me, leaving a deposit of wet sludge behind it. Suddenly debris was circling round, converging on Edward, who was gallantly holding on to Johnny and the plank. He was going to be battered by everything loose in the cellar, in its whirlpool withdrawal.

  ‘Hang on another minute!’ panted Johnny. ‘It’s coming up. The force of the stream below is helping to keep the bin up...’

  The water made sucking noises as the battered drum rose slowly into sight. My ropes were stretched to their limit. One was uncurling...unfurling...going to give way...

  I dived into the water and swam in a rapid crawl to the rescue. Something buffeted my shoulder, but I kept on. Just as the rope was about to part, I reached the bin and thrust at it, forcing it away from me, over on to its side. It tipped and fell, but now it was only halfway over the whole, and Edward could release his grip on Johnny to help me shove the bin out of the way. Johnny scrambled down to help us.

  Then the water was dragging at us, trying to suck us down into the drain with all the loose shale and cement and wine racks and broken furniture and planks that had been floating around. We fought our way back to the steps and huddled with our arms round each other, bruised, tired and chilled.

  ‘What I’d give for a brandy,’ groaned Edward.

  I recalled with annoyance that I was never going to drink brandy again. What a pity. I twisted wet strands of hair onto the top of my head.

  ‘I must look awful,’ I said. ‘The very latest look for bathing; gilt sandals, nylon bra and pants, and a lot of jewellery! What a pity I’ve only got one earring left!’

  Edward started to say that he thought I looked marvellous, but Johnny laughed. Edward’s lips relaxed and he admitted that yes, I wasn’t looking quite my normal self. There was hope for my union with Edward if he could love me looking like a corpse out of a horror film.

  ‘What now?’ asked Johnny, surveying the cellar as the water level dropped lower. Everything movable was now jammed in a tight pack over the manhole, leaving only the bunk beds and the sideboard in their original positions.

  We looked at our watches. Mine had stopped, Johnny’s was smashed, but Edward’s still worked. It was nearly midnight. We supposed the party was still carrying on way above us, although we could hear nothing of it.

  ‘I’ll start on the door when we’ve had a rest,’ said Edward. ‘Using a bolt as a hammer, I could maybe chip a hole through, using a bundle of nails tied together with wire as a chisel.’

  I could see that Johnny thought as little of the plan as I did, but it was plain that doing something would be better than doing nothing, and equally plain that if we sat still for long we would slide into sleep and die. The cold in the cellar was intense. I curled up between the two men while they discussed what they ought to do if Lewis were foolish enough to check on us by opening the cellar door.

  ‘Plent
y of stuff to clobber him with here,’ mused Johnny. ‘Planks, an old sock filled with shale and cement mixture. I could stand flat against the wall at the head of the stairs and clobber him before he knows what’s happening!’